From a Fortified Canaanite City-State to “a City and a Mother” in Israel: Five Seasons of Excavation at Tel Abel Beth Maacah

Tel Abel Beth Maacah is a prominent site on the border of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon where it occupied a strategic geopolitical niche among ancient Canaanites, Israelites, Arameans, and Phoenicians. A survey and five seasons of excavation have revealed an occupation sequence ranging from EB II until modern times with peak occupation dating to MB IIB and Iron Age I–IIA. The robust continuity in settlement from the Late Bronze Age until Iron Age II is a unique phenomenon in this region and sheds important light on the site's transition from a Canaanite city-state to an Iron Age territorial kingdom, particularly acute in this region, between the Israelite kingdom and that of Aram-Damascus.